Operational management of the woodyard in the wood chip production for pulp and paper industry

Abstract

The growing demand for pulp in the global market contributes to the increase in competitiveness among producers and one of the factors that ensure the attractiveness of Brazilian pulp in the international market is the high silvicultural technology and management of the production process, resulting from the constant search for greater optimization of supplies and reduction of operational costs. In this sense, under the hypothesis that the longer downtime of wood processing, higher cost to the company. This study aimed to identify the factors that influence the unscheduled downtime in the processing of Eucalyptus dunnii logs to woodchip production and evaluate the efficiency of mitigating actions implemented to optimize the operation and maximize chip production. To conduct this investigation a preliminary analysis was performed from the PI System software database used by the company to manage the wood processing line, in which the main equipment and services responsible for the unscheduled shutdowns were identified. Then, the downtime and production data were compared considering the result before and after the implementation of the improvement action. The standardization of the raw material was one of the main results because it influenced the reduction of clogging infeed of the processing line, ensuring an increase in chip production by 10 tons hours^-1 by month. Overall, all the implemented actions were efficient except for the exchange knives, which was not enough to achieve the set goal.